NASA's Saucer-Shaped Craft Preps for Flight Test

NASA's Saucer-Shaped Craft Preps for Flight Test

NASA's Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) project, a rocket-powered, saucer-shaped test vehicle, has completed final assembly at the U.S. Navy's Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kauai, Hawaii. This experimental flight test is designed to investigate breakthrough technologies that will benefit future Mars missions, including those involving human exploration. Three weeks of testing, simulations and rehearsals are planned before the first launch opportunity on the morning of June 3. LDSD was built at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, and shipped to Kauai for final assembly and preparations.

JPL


Looks like the Gulf Breeze craft

originally posted by: violet
NASA's Saucer-Shaped Craft Preps for Flight Test

NASA's Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) project, a rocket-powered, saucer-shaped test vehicle, has completed final assembly at the U.S. Navy's Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kauai, Hawaii. This experimental flight test is designed to investigate breakthrough technologies that will benefit future Mars missions, including those involving human exploration. Three weeks of testing, simulations and rehearsals are planned before the first launch opportunity on the morning of June 3. LDSD was built at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, and shipped to Kauai for final assembly and preparations.

JPL


Looks like the Gulf Breeze craft

looks like another low tech rocket stickin out its bum....whats so cutting edge?

a reply to: violet

I really want to know how it flies...pic from your link...



Des

It doesn't look right. Looks like they are trying to disguise something about it. I do not see it hitting mach 4 with the blunt shape unless the rocket sticking out the bottom is a decoy.

LDSD Huh! Why'd they not just call it a flying saucer

a reply to: violet

WoW. I was wondering how they were going to push such an aerodynamic shape in the atmosphere… they aren't.

a balloon will carry the test vehicle from the Hawaii Navy facility to an altitude of about 120,000 feet. There, it will be dropped and its booster rocket will quickly kick in and carry it to 180,000 feet, accelerating to Mach 4.

Its operating in near Vacuum…

The upper layers of Earth's stratosphere are the most similar environment available to match the properties of the thin atmosphere of Mars.

It will utilize "airbags" to slow…

The test vehicle will then deploy an inflatable Kevlar tube around itself, called the Supersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator (SIAD)

Very interesting to note the best minds are experimenting with "disk shaped" craft to reenter the atmosphere of another planet. I wonder if we can get a look at it without that booster and parachute attached?
Ach sooo…

another view

ETA:

Further
Photo Gallery

Seeing something like this only furthers my suspicion that some of the UFO's we see are "Humans" from the future once we figure out time travel tech.

a reply to: grumpy64

Maybe Mach 4 during re-entry, which is what its designed to do by the looks of that large heat shield.

The LDSD isn't really a vehicle though. It's a testbed for the development of drag devices to slow a vehicle in a low density atmosphere like that of Mars. It's a parachute.

In actual use, the vehicle itself would be attached to the back of something like the LDSD, similar to the way space capsules are attached to the back of a heat shield.

a reply to: Phage

Thanks Phage and damn those main stream digits for misleading us with their titles:

NASA's Saucer-Shaped Craft Preps for Flight Test

You're right, a heat shield is not a "craft"… grrr

a reply to: Phage
Thanks for explaining.

During the June experimental flight test, a balloon will carry the test vehicle from the Hawaii Navy facility to an altitude of about 120,000 feet. There, it will be dropped and its booster rocket will quickly kick in and carry it to 180,000 feet, accelerating to Mach 4. Once in the very rarified air high above the Pacific, the saucer will begin a series of automated tests of two breakthrough technologies.

The low-resolution images from the saucer are expected to show the vehicle dropping away from its high-altitude balloon mothership and then rocketing up to the very edge of the stratosphere. The test vehicle will then deploy an inflatable Kevlar tube around itself, called the Supersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator (SIAD). After the SIAD inflates, the test vehicle will deploy a mammoth parachute called the Supersonic Disk Sail Parachute.

Source

originally posted by: smurfy
LDSD Huh! Why'd they not just call it a flying saucer

Because it is NOT a "flying saucer" - simple!
NASA = No Advanced Ships Allowed

originally posted by: Larryman

originally posted by: smurfy
LDSD Huh! Why'd they not just call it a flying saucer

Because it is NOT a "flying saucer" - simple!
NASA = No Advanced Ships Allowed

Would you consider ion drives advanced?

Several NASA missions have used them.

And of course there's the whole Advanced Propulsion Physics Laboratory....

You should read up a bit more because that little statement was kinda ignorant.

Oh lighten up we all know that's not what NASA really stands for.

Peace.

originally posted by: Lichter daraus
Oh lighten up we all know that's not what NASA really stands for.

Peace.

The motto of this site is Deny Ignorance and that and other ignorant statements are often lofted at NASA, shockingly often in this forum.

a reply to: Lichter daraus

Agreed.

2nd.

a reply to: [post=17946367] so just because the motto is deny ignorance, you expect not to see any.
That there is ignorance. We know what nasa stands for im sure that poster knows what it stands for.
You dont really think the poster is really that ignorant, do you?

a reply to: JadeStar

No... I don't consider "Ion Drives" as advanced. It's just another form of 'rocket' propulsion. Space-time bending and warping would be 'advanced' propulsion.

The Advanced Propulsion Physics Laboratory is where NASA dumps it's 'pocket change' - that falls off the multi-billion $$ SLS-Orion rocket. Like the $500K per year for Dr. White to develop Warp Drive. At that funding, he may develop it some time in the next century.

a reply to: violet

Hey, I wonder where they got the idea for the shape? (snicker) Yeah, flying saucers are just the result of a the public's imagination.

a reply to: WeRpeons
A circle is the shape with the greatest surface area for a given perimeter.

This is not a vehicle, it is a testbed for a reentry system. A parachute.